Are You Ready?

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast. What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting tomorrow.”

Adventure...
it’s what everyone needs in their life…a chance to do something new, explore new places and push one’s self to the limit of what we believe we cannot do. I used to live my adventures through two books: Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows.  Now I LIVE my adventures: whether it be hiking through a new place, boating on the lake with friends or snowboarding after driving for six hours: I live them.

The adventures in the next few months are not my own, but those of good friends. Last week was a whirl wind for my friends. My best guy friend got married, my best girl friend (who just moved within a 20 minute drive of me) had a fabulous interview in San Francisco and my very good friend found out she got a job in Indianapolis that starts in June.

I’m happy for all of them, but it does make me wonder, what other adventures are they going to have? Are my friends going to have kids soon? Are they going to actually like living in snow for the majority of the year?  Are they going to remember to jump in puddles? Are they going to have moments where they let go of everything, and just have an adventure?

I picked up my trusty Winnie the Pooh book – it’s been read so many times that the ear marks never quite stay up – to get perspective on the past week.   There is a chapter called “Surrounded by Water”, where Christopher Robin and Pooh climb into an umbrella to escape the water. This chapter comes right before Christopher Robin throws a party to say goodbye, goodbye too many things, but most importantly goodbye to his good friends in the Hundred Acre wood. I found this somewhat calming, as if we could really escape whatever is coming up by climbing into a giant umbrella, climbing into something that people say cannot actually happen.

I’m reminded by my good friends in the Hundred Acre Wood and the Wild Wood, that life is not always about being grown up, but it is about being a kid every so often and still having ADVENTURES.  That life should be measured by the number of adventures you take, and not by the what ifs. So, I wonder, when do we all know if we are actually ready for our next adventure?